


Cycles

by bblobb



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bickering, Comedy, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 08:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13586145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bblobb/pseuds/bblobb
Summary: In which Woohyun blows up his dorm room, makes potions, does yoga and then falls in love.And yeah, goes through a cycle.





	Cycles

There’s nothing but neatly written _‘Kim Sunggyu, 7 th grade warlock, TA (only on Tuesdays)’_ on the door to the dorm room.

Woohyun, a phoenix shifter himself, doesn’t actually mind witches and warlocks, as long as they’re not practicing dark magic and he sincerely doubts there would be one like that in the Infinite University in the first place. He would mind a water spirit and generally doesn’t do too well with vampires, but honestly, who does. There is an endless list of possible inclinations a witch could have and there are a lot of options that would link them to water in one way or another. But that’s still so far away from what kind of terrible asshole the spirits usually are, that he honestly wouldn’t mind a witch at all. Kim Sunggyu, no matter what kind of warlock, is not there though when Woohyun finally finds the right key and opens the door. There’s only faint smell of something burnt and a scent of some kind of flower that’s nowhere to be seen and no witches whatsoever. He would be able to tell if this was a dwelling place of a water spirit or to water related creature right away and he heaves a big sigh of relief. Fortunately, there are no indications of that.

All in all, this room seems to be much bigger than his last one; the one he accidentally blew up two days ago. His former roommate, a hot headed, feisty incubus, didn’t even seem too surprised. Woohyun has always liked Sungjong; the smallest thing would set him off into an endless shit storm of screaming, but the big stuff has always left him absolutely unfazed. Finding a hole in the wall instead of their room made him only clap Woohyun on the back and say he’ll commute from now on, going back to live at his parents’ place.

This time though Woohyun’s going to be living with an older student, a TA even, which – apart from other things – means a bigger room.

He didn’t think TAs ever shared rooms, _could_ share rooms. But after an hour of screaming, the lady in charge of the housing arrangements barked at him aggressively she’s putting him under a TA’s surveillance and _may all the gods help her_ , she’ll turn him into stone forever if something happens again. He doesn’t doubt she would do that. Even though this was his first time actually blowing up a room, it is by far not the first accident he had. He is a phoenix shifter after all and having a lot of destructive power at his disposal that he doesn’t really get to use is bound to create problems here and there. But it’s not like he doesn’t try to avoid it and like it’s just his fault, _thank you very much_.

The room turns out to be actually even bigger than he originally thought it would be; there’s even a shared space, split between a kitchen and what could be called a living room by a little stretch of imagination. There’s a tiny bathroom and two separated bedrooms, which means no more snoring roommates and much more comfortable nesting when the time for it comes. He closes the door behind himself and takes a careful step forward; the bathroom is right there by the door to his left, a few steps forward reveals the improvised living room, which consists only of a worn, purple couch and an old, _really old_ TV; the “kitchen” is connected directly to it. There’s a small work space, a surprisingly big fridge and a tiny table with two chairs.

Woohyun walks forwards and looks around, trying to ignore the crumbs under his feet and his eyes slide to the first bedroom door on his right, closer to the front. He snorts a bit, quickly realising this must be the warlock’s room. There’s a _‘do not enter’_ sign in a couple of languages, standard magic runes, the messy goblin characters and something else Woohyun only assumes is the dragon language. He doesn’t have to touch the door to know active wards would stop him from entering if he tried; the defensive power of them is pulsing towards him threateningly. It’s obvious only a really advanced magic user would be able to cast protective magic this powerful without actually being there to keep it up. It makes Woohyun giggle a bit hysterically as he wonders what kind of kinky shit this dude is hiding under his bed to be this paranoid.

The first meeting with this guy will be interesting, that’s for sure. Judging just by the door to his room, he’s more than a little bit passive aggressive. Woohyun doesn’t really want to jump to conclusions too quickly and decides to scout his own room instead. His door is plain and with no obvious signs or residual magic bound to it. The air inside is awfully stale so the first thing he does is open the window, letting the chill autumn breeze in. The room is nothing special; just a bed, a table and a small closet in the corner. But it’s not burnt and there are no dicks drawn on the walls, so Woohyun calls it a win and proceeds to move in all his stuff that survived his latest go at the love potion; the cause of the explosion.

It doesn’t take him more than a few trips to the dorm office where they let him store the few boxes of his belongings that survived. It’s a Friday evening so the corridors are just starting to buzz with chatter and a tad too much magic. The usage of magic outside of the classrooms is of course prohibited for underage users, excluding those who need active magic for survival and basic functioning. The Friday nights usually prove no one is actually paying too much attention to the student’s dorms and what happens there.

Woohyun’s in the last year of his studies; as his little accident with the love potion would suggest, he is especially interested in potion making, taking the advanced lectures and aspiring to get an official certificate for combat and healing substances from the government soon. Love potions should be the beginners stuff, but Woohyun always likes to try new things; now he knows that the basic love potion brew doesn’t do well with added unicorn horn, as his research first suggested.

While the magic seems to be slowly fading from the world, the Infinite University, situated just outside of Seoul – in a safe distance and all of that – is still booming with students with magical inheritance and luckily for Woohyun, not too many of them decide to pursue the study of potion making. He hopes to have a career in that direction in the near future, carefully avoiding what phoenixes are usually best at and hired for.

Putting his last box of clothes away and setting up his laptop, he realises just how hungry he actually is. Having his share of knowledge about potions and how to make them, Woohyun prefers to cook his own meals as well and having a kitchen, however small, for himself is just perfect. Shapeshifters generally don’t really need any special kind of diet but as far as he knows, there are no other phoenix shapeshifters around, which means the school kitchen doesn’t really take his needs into consideration at all. He likes to have control over what he’s eating and especially how fresh it is; the most important parts of his diet are loads of meat and maybe surprisingly, cereal.

He has bought some groceries earlier that day and so he moves to kitchen, slowly learning his way around. He tries to ignore the dirty dishes his new roommate left behind in the sink and quickly throws together something simple but edible. He’s just about to sit down and find out if the TV actually works and if it only works in black and white as it would seem, when frantic knocking on the front door stops him in his tracks.

He’s not sure who could be knocking; he hasn’t really told anyone where he would move because until today’s afternoon, he didn’t know himself. It’s definitely someone looking for the warlock, who is conveniently _still missing_.

He sighs and walks to open the door.

“Ye-?“ Woohyun starts; he’s only able to notice two guys are in front of his door, way too close to his face right away.

“What’s happe – “ A panicked voice of the one standing closer interrupts him and then promptly cuts itself off.

There’s too much going on in the next moment; Woohyun blinks at a pair of big, blue eyes staring back at him from alarmingly close proximity and then suddenly, he’s looking at his own damn face instead. He can’t keep in the yell, really, and he takes a few steps backwards. His first thought is that he’s been cursed and he feels his palms itch with his own, fiery magic, warm and steady and ready to protect him. A few flames even lick up to his elbows and he has to try really hard to keep them down.

“What the fuck,” he swears and blinks rapidly – which doesn’t help to make the reflection of himself, _right there, in front of him_ , disappear.

And then the second guy is stepping closer, pushing _Woohyun no. 2_ away with an impatient grunt. It’s a bulky looking guy with wild hair and he’s sniffing the air, which sure is weird, but _there’s still Woohyun’s perfect twin_ hovering behind his back and that’s still the weirder thing at that moment.

“What the fuck,” Woohyun repeats faintly. He realises his sub-consciousness is trying and failing to decide if bursting into flames or an actual transformation would be a better solution.

“God, sorry, dude,” the one that doesn’t look like Woohyun says finally, stepping back and elbowing the one who looks like Woohyun again, making him step back. “We – we live across the hallway, I smelled food and panicked, because last time hyung tried to cook – yeah, sorry, we didn’t know he had someone over?”

The guy is looking over his shoulder now as if expecting another person to appear and that’s when Woohyun realises he’s implying he’s the warlock’s hook up, already overstaying his welcome or something.

“Oh, _oh_ , no!” He says hurriedly. “I moved in today? There is a free room and I sort of – well, I had to be moved, I haven’t met the guy who lives here yet. I’m Woohyun, by the way, shapeshifter.”

The two exchange a quick look and the other Woohyun slowly shifts back to what Woohyun assumes is the original look of the guy. The big blue eyes are back and this time Woohyun can also notice a boyish, young-looking face and a mischievous smile to go with them.

“Sungyeol,” he declares and offers his hand. “Doppelganger, you probably figured that out. Sorry about the – you know, it sometimes happens involuntarily when I get, um, surprised or scared or something extreme. I usually stick to this hot bod though.”

“Don’t worry about it,” a surprised laugh escapes Woohyun and he shakes Sungyeol’s hand. Damn, he hasn’t met a doppelganger before and has always thought all of them have to be major dickheads. This guy looks almost suspiciously innocent now.  

“I’m Hoya, werewolf,” the wild looking guy says and well, that _would_ explain all the wildness. “Sorry again, I smelled the food but nothing of the usual stuff Sunggyu normally orders in. I guess we thought he’s tried to cook again and feared for our lives.”

It’s Sungyeol’s turn to elbow Hoya and push himself forward. “Don’t tell him we said that, though, neither of us wants to deal with _that_.”

Hoya pushes his face away but nods.

“Anyway, we live opposite of you,” he points over to an open door. “We actually hang out with Sunggyu-hyung quite often, so we’ll probably see each other again. Next doors live Myungsoo, he’s a part fairy so, you know, just don’t mention anything about what he looks like, and Dongwoo, a unicorn. You can mention that all you want, you’ll see what I mean when you meet him.”

Woohyun’s eyebrow goes up slightly. “What a combination, a fairy and a unicorn.”

Hoya laughs a bit at that and shrugs, scratching the back of his head a bit awkwardly. “Myungsoo can be surprisingly grumpy for his nature but we’re all nice, I promise.”

Woohyun thinks this is the time he actually _shouldn’t_ mention the reason he’s moved in is blowing up his last room and aims for an awkward, hopefully friendly smile instead.

Sungyeol doesn’t try to force his way forward again but takes Hoya by the collar, pulling him towards their door instead. “Anyway, we won’t bother you. Hoya, what day is it today? Oh yeah, third quarter or something. You probably can’t expect hyung until tomorrow morning, he would explain that better than me, in an annoying length even. The moon is in some kind of position and that’s interesting or something and he’s ugh, doing stuff. With that.”

Hoya looks at him unimpressed and snorts dismissively, lets himself be pulled backwards anyway. “I probably can explain the phases of the moon better than anyone so what you just said is extremely insulting. But that’s so not the point. Don’t worry about it, Woohyun, hyung is chill.”

-

Woohyun promises himself that after (and if) he gets out of the shitstorm of a first meeting with his new roommate, he’ll poison Hoya with wolfsbane; for saying this dude would be “chill”.

The warlock comes in only when Woohyun is already up the next morning and making himself a breakfast. Kim Sunggyu looks harmless at first sight, tired small eyes, pale skin, black hair, a slim figure. He looks ruffled and exhausted, there are deep dark circles under his eyes and a rather big coffee stain on the front of his white shirt; it seems like he spilled more than he was able to drink. Woohyun’s stupid, morning-slow mind even offers words like _cute_ and _wow_. And then the warlock opens his mouth and everything just goes to hell.

“The fuck are you?” The guy barks and his eyes go completely black in less than a second and dark shades begin to gather in his hand and there are lines and lines of runs and letters in black ink on his forearms. He doesn’t have to use any words whatsoever to summon force that actually makes the ground shake under Woohyun’s feet and despite how terrible, _terrible_ this situation is, Woohyun is a little bit impressed.

But yeah. Fuck Woohyun’s life; _of course_ he got paired up with probably the only witch practicing dark magic on this continent.

Woohyun doesn’t know what to do, tries to look at the situation calmly and come up with the right, rational reaction. The facts are; there is a very pissed off warlock, dark magic is involved, balls of dark energy are being formed and he, Woohyun, is standing there in worn sweatpants with holes in them and a frying pan full of scrambled eggs. He puts the pan down, for starters, and tries to show the warlock that his hands are empty and harmless.

“I’m - your new roommate,” Woohyun tries to say calmly and confidently at the same time, just in case witches can sense fear. He has to fight his own magic, prickling right under his skin, much stronger than last night when he met the neighbours. Actually seeing someone getting ready to attack him sends much clearer signals to his magic, which demands its full form for protection and to fight. Phoenixes are generally known as combat shifters, _fighters_ , and although Woohyun never inclined to that, he can’t suppress his nature in the face of such obvious, imminent danger.

Luckily for both of them, Woohyun’s explanation seems good enough for the moment.

The dark ball that has formed in the guy’s palm, perfectly shaped and pulsing, slowly disappears into nothing and his eyes bleed back into reddish brown, however not any less pissed. Woohyun briefly wonders what that ball could have done to him; an image of a perfect, ball-shaped hole punched through his chest comes up in his, quite frankly unhelpful, mind.

“I don’t have a roommate,” the warlock says curtly, throwing a bag he’d been carrying on the kitchen table. By the sound of it, it’s filled with some pretty heavy books. “Especially not a fire fairy.”

Woohyun knows shapeshifters are hard to detect, just the basic element being the prominent in their aura. The fact he doesn’t only rule over fire magic but can take a shape of a fire creature isn’t obvious to most, but he would expect a witch of a rank _that_ high to know. He tries not to feel offended but this kind of behaviour is uncalled for.

“You suck at sensing auras,” Woohyun narrows his eyes. “Especially for a witch.”

“I’m not a witch,” the guy answers curtly; it sounds like something he has to repeat a lot.

“That’s what’s written on the door, man,” Woohyun shrugs.

“I know what’s written on _my_ door, they wouldn’t let me – you know what, I don’t know why I’m even talking to you right now,” he says and Woohyun snorts.

“You mean, other than the fact I’ll be living here now?”

“We’ll see about that. I work as a TA, I think it’s highly inappropriate to have a student here, a fire fairy even,” he repeats with contempt. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

He doesn’t say more and on wobbly feet walks to his room, slamming the door loudly behind himself.

It takes just a second before the magic crackles in the air and the wards go up again.

-

That day, Woohyun goes about his classes and study load like in a dream. There’s a cloud of anger, disbelief and just startled amusement floating around his head, making everything fuzzy around the edges. He expected his roommate to be anything; a healer maybe, a summoner even, perhaps a woodland kind of witch, there were so many of those around these parts. He didn’t expect a dark magic user, the guy looked _nothing_ like a warlock. Witches and warlocks usually like to make a statement about who they are; with how they dress, behave and move around in quite ridiculous gangs, always chanting away one bullshit spell or another. This guy had an extraordinary aura around himself that wasn’t unlike a witch’s, but also somehow different.

And yes, then there was the part where he turned out to be a total dick too.

“Woohyun?!” A very pissed off voice of his lecturer alerts him to what he’s doing, and he blinks down at his treacherous hands; he was about to throw a handful of fairy dust to a mixture of dragon blood and nightshade, which is the basic _no_ of potion making. The kind of no that leads to more explosions.

He waves an apology to his teacher, who rolls his eyes and massages the spot above his heart exaggeratedly.  Woohyun puts the dust down guiltily, far away from what he’s doing. He shakes his head and puts the trouble with his roommate away for later.

-

Sunggyu puts on a smile and knocks on the door of the dorm office. This is going to be easy; he knows Agatha, she likes him, because just like her, he’s no creature from a fairy tale and his records are kept in a red binder – he’s a _‘risky student with possible inclinations to violence and dangerous use of magic’_ and all the staff of the university has to be informed, including the dorm’s employees. Considering Agatha is part medusa from her mother’s side, she can relate to the unnecessary attention more than well.

“Hey honey, what’s up,” she smiles at him when he enters and gives him – what Sunggyu assumes is supposed to be – a flirty look.

“Hey,” he smiles. “I think there was a little mistake in an arrangement? There’s a guy in my room who says he’s my roommate. He’s a student, too. An annoying one.”

She doesn’t answer right away and turns away to look through some papers, puckering her lips a little bit.

“No mistake, I’m afraid. Nam Woohyun, 22 years old and in his last year, a shapeshifter. He was moved to you for a reason, he blew up the last room he stayed in. He needs supervision.”

“What?” Sunggyu exclaims. “And why did no one tell me in the first place, I almost cursed his sorry ass when I found him messing up my kitchen. I don’t have time to look after some kid, I’m busy.”

“Look, he’s not a problematic student, he’s top of his year, just gets a little bit too creative with the potion making from time to time, I’m sure you two can figure something out,” Agatha’s smile is turning a little nervous by now. “You should have received a letter about it, but it was all sorted out really quickly so maybe it hasn’t reached you yet.”

“What letter, I live three floors above this damn office! And I’m a TA, he could be in my class for all I know, he can’t _live_ with me,” Sunggyu feels the dread creeping up his spine; it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to talk his way out of this.

“He won’t be in any of your classes, he’s just two years younger than you, not even whole two years, and you have only the introductory lectures,” she flips through what Sunggyu assumes are the kid’s papers. “This came straight from the University, I can’t do anything for you, I’m afraid.”

“Oh god,” Sunggyu groans.

He says his goodbyes and shuffles back to his room, feeling completely defeated. That guy looked super annoying too. And he’s a shifter? Sunggyu was way too tired when he met him in the morning to really concentrate on what kind of vibes the guy was giving off – he felt fire magic and assumed he was a fairy. Now he knows he’s a shapeshifter but that could still mean anything at all. Maybe a hellhound.

Sunggyu is so not interested in meeting new people, not in this school and _the dorm_ especially.

“Hey there,” Sungyeol appears out of nowhere and to top this perfect day, his face quickly transforms into the one of his new roommate. “So we’ve met your new pet project last night.”

“Don’t you have a class or something,” Sunggyu mumbles grumpily and tries to push Sungyeol away, only to have the lanky kid glue to his side completely. He at least changes his face back to his own.

“Nope, I have a vampire for some of my classes this semester, I’ve got to wait till midnight and all the jazz,” Sungyeol waves his hand. “Anyway, we’re more interested in what’s happening and how that guy managed to strike living with you, the dream of us all.”

“Oh shut up,” Sunggyu groans. “I don’t know, Agatha only told me he blew up his last room so I guess I’m in for a ride.”

“What? Seriously? This is amazing,” Sungyeol laughs and lets himself be elbowed in the ribs. “He seemed nice, though.”

“Nice?” Sunggyu repeats scornfully.

“Aw, come on, you’re just grumpy your fortress of solitude has been invaded,” Sungyeol lets go of him when they reach their rooms. “Just don’t kill him, yeah?”

“I’ll try,” Sunggyu mumbles and waves at Sungyeol, unlocking the door to his room.

It takes him just one step in before he’s tripping over a pair of shoes, almost landing on his face.

“Fuck me,” he curses, kicking at the offending sneakers – definitely not his, by the way.

“Oh, sorry about that,” a voice comes from the coach and Sunggyu lifts his head to see his roommate, this time properly dressed at least.

Sunggyu knows rationally that being put into this room specifically is not the guy’s fault, not directly at least, but he’s just so frustrated with this whole situation it’s easier to be pissed at him.

“You didn’t mention your last room got blown up. By you,” Sunggyu says, tries to sound casual.

“When did I have time for that, exactly? I mean, between you being a giant dick and you slamming the door in my face? The really fancy door you got over there?” He points to Sunggyu’s room, face full of contempt.

Well there goes Sunggyu’s initial thought of being rational about this. Not only is the guy an idiot, but he also doesn’t have a shred of self-preservation.

“What,” he says, doesn’t even bother phrasing that as a question.

The shifter seems to rethink the sass and heaves a sigh, obviously deciding to be the smart one here. It makes Sunggyu want to scream.

“Look man, I get it, you’re not used to someone else here but I’m not that difficult to live with. I mind my own stuff and I promise not to blow up this place,” he puts away a book he’s been reading and stands up, Sunggyu manages to only read ‘Advanced – ‘ on the cover. “Can we just do this again? I’m Woohyun.”

Sunggyu looks at the offered hand sceptically. He could be a little bitch about this and throw a tantrum, but maybe he can wait for a legit reason to have this guy kicked out. He takes the hand after a split of a second, frowning a little bit. “Sunggyu.”

It takes just a tiny bit, just the moment their hands touch, for Sunggyu to finally put a finger on the fire aura that’s surrounding the guy; no hellhound, a phoenix. _A damn phoenix_! Phoenixes are fighters and they get territorial. Phoenixes _nestle_ and leave feathers and ash everywhere when their cycle is up. God, who thought putting two potentially _explosive_ magical beings together into one tiny apartment was a good idea? Sunggyu also knows phoenixes are essentially good, calm beasts that are frighteningly efficient in a fight but usually aren’t too keen to join it in the first place. But this guy is young and by blowing up a room has proven not to be the best at controlling himself.

He yanks his hand back.

“You’re a phoenix,” he says it like an accusation and cringes.

“Told you not a fire fairy,” Woohyun answers smugly.

“And you want to promise me not to blow up this place?” Sunggyu asks and takes a few steps back. “What part of your cycle are you in right now?”

“That’s an awfully personal question,” Woohyun frowns at him, crossing the hands on his chest. “And you don’t have to worry about that, I know how to handle myself, so just – fuck off.”

So much for a new, fresh start, then. Sunggyu just throws his hands up in the air, turns away from the phoenix. This conversation won’t lead anywhere, not anywhere reasonable anyway.

“Yeah, just walk away.”

Sunggyu stops, a faint smile passing over his face, and turns around. “What?”

“It’s completely uncalled for, for you to be treating me like an incompetent kid, I don’t have to take that. I don’t care if you’re older or a witch practicing dark magic, I don’t care, alright, but I refuse to just stand here and let you treat me like a complete dick.”

“Who’s acting like a dick now, huh? I was about to walk away, let you have your little drama here all alone. Sure, you live here now, they told me you’re here of all places because you need supervision, that’s why I’m asking you about the whole burning to ashes once in a while thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to be friends or talk to each other, really,” Sunggyu crosses his hands as well. “I somehow doubt there’s anything we’d have in common anyway.”

“Finally something we can agree on.”

-

“This is weird,” Hoya says and he’s the first one to break the silence in the room.

It’s a week later, after a complete silence and only a few threatening looks exchanged between the two. Well, okay, there might have been a few short ‘conversations’ too; they included biting, imaginative remarks from both sides and unfortunate mentioning of Woohyun’s rebirth cycle again and Sunggyu’s apparently wrongly assessed ‘with/warlock’ status. And there might have been one or two screaming matches; they agreed each gets one victory and one defeat. And Woohyun might have been leaving ash everywhere – ash that he had to go out of his way to create, because unfortunately, ash just doesn’t naturally fall out of a phoenix’s ass to annoy everybody, as Sunggyu seems to think. In turn, Woohyun highly doubts anyone could justify messing up as many dishes as Sunggyu has managed in the last week, and weirdly enough, he has started tripping over invisible things in the past week, which he strongly suspects is the warlock’s fault too. All in all, it is turning truly ridiculous, moms were mentioned, and Woohyun at times has to fight back the urge to laugh. He has a suspicious feeling he saw Sunggyu unironically giggle once or twice too.

So okay, maybe there wasn’t any silence at all and there was a lot of fighting instead, but today, there was no argument at all. Mostly because when Woohyun was leaving for his classes in the morning, Sunggyu was still blissfully asleep, and then gone when Woohyun came back.

It’s quite late in the evening when Woohyun decides to heat up some leftovers from the day before for dinner, and then the living room suddenly crowds with the neighbours, catching him off guard. He has met Dongwoo and Myungsoo the day before; well he figured it was them. Dongwoo had an obviously unconscious habit of creating rainbows around himself and Myungsoo, _well_. You would just know.

All of them, including Hoya and Sungyeol from before, are now sprawled on the tiny coach or in front of it and the room is completely silent again.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a second, don’t worry,” Woohyun waves his hand towards the pot on the stove. He could have done that with a snap of his fingers in his room, this is what he gets for trying to act like a civilised human.

“This is weird,” Hoya repeats unfazed, ignoring Woohyun and looking straight at Sunggyu instead.

The warlock just rolls his eyes and looks over to Woohyun.

“Woohyun – “

“No,” he answers simply and offers a smile as fake as he can. He notices Sunggyu’s mouth twitch before he’s turning back to Hoya.

“See? This is a relationship of mutual neutrality and silence, don’t bring your needy friendliness into this,” Sunggyu kicks Sungyeol, who’s been hypnotizing Woohyun with an unblinking stare since he came in. “Quit that, too.”

“But we like him,” he says now and finally looks away and _finally_ blinks.

“You don’t know him,” Sunggyu answers calmly.

“Believe me, I’m better off somewhere without these vibes,” Woohyun points at Sunggyu. “It’s setting _my cycle_ on edge.”

“Oh my god, would you just shut up about that,” Sunggyu groans, burying his face in his hands. “I admit, I shouldn’t have said that, sorry, just drop it.”

“Did you just say sorry? Did anyone else hear it too?” Woohyun laughs hysterically.

“What cycle?” Dongwoo obviously perks up at that, ignoring Woohyun completely.

“Oh god,” Woohyun groans and grabs his food. He’ll just snap his fingers, this is too much. “I’m leaving.”

“What cycle?” Dongwoo repeats, this time aimed at Sunggyu, who looks like he wants to leave too.

“Just drop it, for fuck’s sake.”

-

“Do you sleep in the form of a bat?” Woohyun doesn’t mean to say that out loud but Sunggyu looks just so... tragic and miserable and not completely human. He can’t help it.

The warlock just looks at him blankly for a few seconds without answering. For a moment, Woohyun thinks the guy actually falls asleep standing up, right there, eyes open and all.

“No,” Sunggyu rasps after a few more painfully long moments.

“Let’s just go,” Woohyun sighs and has to manhandle him outside into the crowded corridor.

The alarm for everyone to leave their rooms and the building came at half past three in the morning. Apparently, there’s a newly born wyvern roaming around, pissed off and already looking for its first prey. Woohyun isn’t sure if this is a drill or not but he assumes another idiot might have thought it would be a good idea to get an egg, without knowing what it is, and wait for what happens. Wyverns aren’t friendly with people in the first place and even though they’re not really dangerous when this young, the poor animal must be stressed and the sooner they get it out of the dorms and into the mountains, the better.

Sunggyu slowly wakes up on their way out and with a snap of his fingers makes himself a blanket as black as his soul from nothing and grumpily marches forward.

“You sure it’s not a spawn of yours?” he says, as if he can’t help himself even now.

“Why do I have the feeling that if we had a fight right now, I’d make you cry?” Woohyun asks conversationally and Sunggyu has to think about it for a few long seconds.

“Probably.”

That’s how Woohyun learns for future references when the warlock is at his weakest.

-

Sleepy Sunggyu makes an appearance once or twice more within the next month of their cohabitation. The first time, Woohyun draws on his face and then ends up floating around their apartment for about two hours with his gravity stolen and his wings blocked. Sunggyu just sits there below him, grading some poor kids’ tests (way too often drawing obnoxious ‘F’s on the papers), and once in a while he lifts his eyes and makes Woohyun hit his head on the ceiling.

The second time, Woohyun realises he can’t be bothered anymore. Sunggyu is fighting the sleep over an absurdly thick book, written in a language Woohyun hasn’t even seen before (not even on Sunggyu’s stupid door). He leans over the kitchen table, where he was working on his own homework, and snaps the tome shut when Sunggyu’s head falls backwards, bending his neck into an incredibly painful looking angle.

It stirs Sunggyu awake, he tries to say something, but nothing comes out. He looks pathetically helpless and Woohyun rolls his eyes.

“Just go to bed, oh my god, you disaster.”

Woohyun isn’t sure when exactly malice left their relationship.

-

For all the shit Woohyun’s been giving him for calling whatever it is he actually goes through a ‘cycle’, it’s more than obvious when the time comes. Sunggyu always likes to be prepared for everything and so reading about phoenixes has been one of his past times for the three months they’ve been living together.

Woohyun has started looking worse for the wear in the past week, has started acting a little disoriented and extremely distracted. That day, Sunggyu finds him asleep on the couch, with a bowl of whatever cereal of the day half eaten, a spoon still in his hand. It’s weird, disturbingly even, to see him that defenceless and without snappy comments. It makes Sunggyu’s hands itch with – _something_. Probably the urge to strangle him.

The phoenix wakes up, eventually, his eyes quickly finding Sunggyu awkwardly hovering, still by the door.

“Not a goddamn word about cycles,” he rasps and promptly spills the cereal into his lap.

“For fuck’s sake!”

-

Burning to ashes and being born again is something Woohyun dreads and loves at the same time. It’s not painful and not pleasant, it’s not something that he’s really that physically aware of, his shifter side taking over for a few days.

He can tell when it’s about to happen, his fingers tingling with magic, flames appearing sporadically around him. He’s been dreading this; now he really has to go and tell Sunggyu he’ll be out of it for a few days and since this topic has somehow become taboo, it’s painfully awkward to bring it up now.

He shuffles out of his bedroom reluctantly and after not finding Sunggyu anywhere in the shared area, knocks on his door.

“This better be good,” comes a yell from inside and when the witch emerges, there are smears of something dark all over his face, forearms and upperbody, which is for some reason bare.

They stand there in silence for a long moment, just staring at each other. A fleeting thought about how absurd his life turned out to be passes through Woohyun’s mind.

“I don’t want to know,” Woohyun says and points at Sunggyu’s chest. “Anyway – the time’s up, I’m about to go up in flames in a few hours, just a heads up. No, I won’t burn down anything, that’s not how the rebirth flame works. No, I won’t be able to communicate with anyone and there’s not an excuse good enough for anyone to be opening the door to my room in the next three days. Bye.”

Sunggyu, for once, doesn’t have anything clever to answer and Woohyun’s just grateful no more talking is involved. He returns to his room, vaguely thinking about what the fuck Sunggyu was doing before he interrupted him.

-

Just as he said, Woohyun’s nowhere to be seen for the next few days and luckily, no fire breaks out either. The general temperature of the room goes up, that at least is noticeable, but other than that, it’s like nothing is happening at all. When the phoenix finally comes out a few days later, he looks – well, he looks like shit. Involuntarily, over the months spent together Sunggyu has noticed that if nothing, Woohyun does take care of himself and what he looks like. Sunggyu can’t really tell what’s all the stuff he’s covered in now and he doesn’t want to know; there’s definitely ash and feathers but also other _things_. Sunggyu freezes, a cup of coffee mid way to his mouth, and Woohyun just looks at him and rolls his eyes.

When he emerges from the bathroom about an hour later, unnecessarily shirtless, it’s just when Sunggyu is about to leave to teach his Introduction to dark magic class. Now it’s finally clear to him what the rebirth does, because none of the books he’s read seemed to conclude the same thing. Woohyun does look like a new person; it’s still the same asshole alright, but compared to what he looked like prior to the rebirth, sickly and exhausted, the change is breathtaking. His skin is glowing, he looks like he got to sleep for a few days straight, had the best meal of his life and probably a few rounds of very satisfying sex. He’s almost floating, too.

Sunggyu decides he needs to get the fuck out of there, because these thoughts about his roommate that seem to involuntarily invade his mind are not helpful in the least. It’s already enough that lately, the bickering that started off as hurtful and malicious all the months ago, has now turned into almost playful. And it’s been giving Sunggyu all kinds of wrong ideas.

Before he slams the door behind himself, he still manages to see something that will haunt his dreams for the next few weeks. Woohyun’s on his way to the kitchen and just casually lifts his hands above his head, stretching. A pair of gorgeous, fiery wings spreads from his bare back, all reds and oranges. They’re graceful and majestic and beautiful, nothing like Sunggyu has ever seen in his life, and Woohyun makes this bone-deep, satisfied sigh of relief at the stretch. The wings give one powerful swing, sweeping all the way up to the ceiling, before disappearing again.

So does disappear Sunggyu’s sanity.

-

Woohyun always finds it a bit difficult after the rebirth to control his limbs. There’s too much energy in his hands, everything is just a tad too sharp to his eyes and it takes a few hours for him to get used to it again. So he ends up burning an eyebrow of some poor bastard who sits next to him in his first class and who asks for a pen, and he accidentally knocks one door out of its hinges on his way back to the dorms. He’s itching to fly, to shift and spend hours and days just exploring the sky. He knows better than to submit to those urges; he’s been staying low and away from prying eyes for the better part of his life, pretending he has never reached the full potential of his powers and couldn’t shift fully. The government is always way too eager to find magical beings with destructive powers and Woohyun won’t be putting that target on his back, not if he can prevent it.

He’s in an awfully good mood when he reaches the dorms, meets Dongwoo on his way out and cheerfully points out to him the horn on his forehead which he has forgotten after a shift. He should have known, though, that his good mood could only last so long; he can literally feel the waves of unsettled magic coming from their apartment before he even reaches it. Sure enough, Sunggyu’s sitting at the kitchen table, literally surrounded by shadows. They crack with electricity – well, Woohyun assumes it’s electricity – and the moment he takes a step forward, they regroup into a dense shield. It acts on its own will, that much is obvious, because Sunggyu waves his hand a moment after and the air clears completely in split of a second.

“Sorry about that,” he says, voice raw and raspy.

Woohyun stays right where he is, considering his best options for survival. Although Sunggyu doesn’t seem to be interested in him whatsoever, he seems completely unstable too. The dark lines of tattoos Woohyun has only seen once before are back, even more prominent and actually moving up Sunggyu’s arms and disappearing beneath his shirt. The witch stands up, tries to take a step forward, and then sighs, a broken, horrible sound, and vanishes.

“Fuck me,” Woohyun breathes and quickly closes the door behind himself.

He had literally no idea Sunggyu was advanced enough to singlehandedly, with no obvious struggle, teleport. No sound, no words said, just like that. Woohyun knows, having read more books about witches in the past two months than in his whole life, that this is some serious shit, not even talking about the fact none of the books, documents, nothing ever mentions tattoos comparable to Sunggyu’s in any way. Logically, Woohyun knows that between the two of them, if it came to a real fight, he’d be toast in a second too. Now he realises he doesn’t probably come even close in assessing the extent of Sunggyu’s magic.

It takes him a few more deep, calming breaths to notice what Sunggyu’s been sitting over at the kitchen table. There’s a small stack of papers, official looking, not unlike those coming his way once every few months from the Ministry of Defence. He doesn’t want to look, knowing more than better this stuff is personal. But among many of his flaws, there’s unfortunately also curiosity. Which is why without giving it a second thought, he’s looking into the papers anyway.

The words like ‘public danger’, ‘usability’, ‘threat’, ‘surveillance’, ‘imprisonment’, ‘potential profit’ stand out among other words that make Woohyun’s skin crawl. This is horrible. And terrifying. Woohyun doesn’t want to think about what kind of powers exactly Sunggyu possesses, because this level of official attention is disturbing.

He puts the papers back down, for some reason feeling just awful. Sunggyu acts like a dick, leaves dirty dishes in the sink and water on the floor in the bathroom, but for what is worth, Woohyun knows for a fact nothing he’s ever done endangered him or anyone else. And he’s given Sunggyu plenty reasons to get mad. But the guy’s surprisingly chill too, usually doesn’t rise to the bait. And when he does, it’s usually hilarious. Yet these papers are describing him with words like ‘potential loss of control that could lead to civilian casualties’.

“Bullshit,” Woohyun breathes and sits down, groaning. He doesn’t know why he feels so personally involved. Maybe because there are stacks of similar papers in his drawer, maybe because this is the same kind of nonsense. Except now Woohyun’s problems seem insignificant because even though he’s hiding a big part of himself, even if that side got discovered, he would still have the option to say no.

These papers are more than clear in their purpose. They are waiting for Sunggyu to make a mistake, screw up and give them a reason to just put him in chains somewhere, or maybe put him to the first line of a suicidal mission somewhere.

Fuck.

Woohyun hates it, everything about it. He’s been living with Sunggyu for almost half a year at this point and if he didn’t make him explode and kill Woohyun so far, which would have been justified on many occasions, he probably never would. Sunggyu uses his magic to manhandle Woohyun around sometimes, when he’s being a dick and is hogging the whole couch for himself or something, and the invisible force always feels natural and kind. And Woohyun is never going to admit that at this point, he’s doing dick stuff just to get Sunggyu’s attention.

He looks down at the papers again, the new wave of anger completely justified. Sunggyu doesn’t deserve this.

-

He appears a few hours later, as fluidly as he disappeared before. The tattoos are gone, his hair is full of twigs and he smells strongly of a forest.

“You read it, didn’t you,” he says, doesn’t ask, and the resignation in his voice makes Woohyun feel bad about it too.

“I didn’t know you were a threat to the ‘international peace’,” Woohyun says instead. “Maybe the peace of this room, sure, but I’ve never thought or heard that witches could be such troublemakers.”

“I already told you I’m not a witch,” Sunggyu sighs and takes a bottle of water out of the fridge.

“What? Come on man, it’s written there too, and the door, why are you – “

“Just let it go, alright, the less you know, the better,” he gulps down the whole bottle, throwing it on the counter.

“Really, dude?” Woohyun says despite himself, pointing at the bottle.

Sunggyu looks at him confused and then follows his finger to where he’s pointing and laughs a little hysterically.

“Incredible,” he mumbles and throws the bottle into the trash – like a normal human being would do right away – and scoops up the papers.

“I wonder how little self preservation there is in you,” he says, an amused smile on his face as he walks towards his room. “I expected you’d be all packed and gone by now, after reading this. You’re one persistent son of a bitch, aren’t you.”

“You can bet on that.”

It’s all kinds of absurd that Woohyun finding out about Sunggyu’s “dangerous potential” is what breaks the ice between them completely. Even though their conversations still mostly consist of insults and trash talk, they start to talk more, spend some time together when they’re both in.

-

“I can’t wait to hear you explain this,” Sunggyu says, barely containing the hysterical giggles that  are trying to escape him. “Please tell me yoga for phoenixes is a thing.”

“Shut up, you asshole,” Woohyun barks from an awkward, squatted position that seriously cannot be doing him any good. “It _is_ a thing, alright.”

Sunggyu watches amused as he starts tipping forwards, his balance lost. His descent is comically slow with Woohyun actually trying to prevent the fall with his muscles, and then finally with a frustrated exhale, his wings burst free from his back to help him. Sunggyu wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact moment since when Woohyun stopped keeping himself in check; he’s been letting his phoenix self slip free much more often. The things he’s been dreading when he first moved in now became reality; feathers _everywhere_. Sometimes, the phoenix just sits by the TV, absentmindedly grooming one of his wings, straightening up the feathers and pulling out a few ones here and there. As an answer to Sunggyu’s questioning look, the asshole actually laughed hysterically and told him phoenix feathers were super rare in potion making and he wasn’t above selling his own ass for success and money. Sunggyu, feeling slightly disturbed, hoped he was joking.

To come home after a long day of teaching the first years how to simply turn each other into frogs and find Woohyun awkwardly balancing himself in the middle of the living room, the couch pushed out of the way, is a new one though.

The phoenix finally gives up and lets himself fall down fully on his ass with a soft thud.

“I’m going out of my mind,” he admits and groans in frustration. “You know what? I’m sick of this. I have wings, I’m supposed to fly and be free and all that shit, and instead, the only relief I get is this bullshit.”

By now, Sunggyu has heard the rant about ‘not being able to fly’ one too many times, but he never really thought it was this serious.

“I’ve got muscles I haven’t stretched in years, it’s killing me, I need to fly!”

“Bet those aren’t the only muscles you haven’t used in years,” Sunggyu deadpans and laughs at his own stupid joke when Woohyun just sits there, gaping.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” he says finally.

“No wait,” Sunggyu laughs and waves his hand dismissively. “I’ve been reading some things lately and I think I might be able to help you.”

“What?” Woohyun looks at him sceptically. “You know a better yoga move than the shitty one I just tried?”

Sunggyu rolls his eyes and sits at the couch that’s actually blocking door to his room. He would have killed Woohyun for that half a year ago, now he can’t even be bothered to complain.

“Nah, I think I could actually create you a shield that would make it possible for you to fly undetected.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Sunggyu,” Woohyun growls and points at him. “Don’t joke about this.”

“No, seriously, listen to me,” he says quickly. “I mean, it wouldn’t be for long, could buy you an hour or so, but I think I might be able to do it.”

Woohyun’s eyes turn all big and puppy-like, another thing Sunggyu has learnt about Woohyun in the past month. He can play dirty when he wants something and Sunggyu is also tragically bad at saying no to him.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Woohyun repeats but his voice is painfully hopeful.

“I’ll need one of your precious feathers,” Sunggyu says and tries to hide how much Woohyun’s reaction is pleasing him. “And a bit of time.”

-

Until recently, Woohyun’s been to Sunggyu’s room only a few times. The first time Woohyun came in, he kind of expected human skulls and walls painted black. For how messy Sunggyu sometimes gets, his room is surprisingly minimalist and there are no body parts of any kind anywhere in sight. There are way too many books, that’s a fact, and stacks of papers to grade for Sunggyu’s classes everywhere but other than that, everything seems to have its place.

Ever since Sunggyu mentioned the possibility of an unrestricted flight for Woohyun, the phoenix has been knocking on his door much more often though.

“Woohyun seriously!” Comes a yell when he knocks on a Friday afternoon. “Come in, you bastard.”

The resignation in his voice makes Woohyun laugh and he bursts through the door with a cheerful smile.

“Sunggyu, my favourite roommate!”

“Shut up, you fucker,” Sunggyu spits and rolls his eyes. “I could just curse your ass and be done with it too.”

“You’re all _fuck the police_ today, I like it,” Woohyun smiles and plops down onto Sunggyu’s bed.

There’s a single sheet of paper with a strange, complex drawing on it on Sunggyu’s table and Woohyun’s eyes glue to it automatically.

“You’re acting like a spoiled brat, you know that,” Sunggyu groans and points at him with a disgusted face. “I don’t know why I actually offered to help you.”

“To ease your dark, burnt soul?” Woohyun offers and Sunggyu pretends to think about it.

“Probably.”

“And?”

“Yeah, we’re ready to go.”

-

Sunggyu insists they wait till later in the evening but decides they can try it tonight.

“You know, I know very little details about how you’re actually going to make this possible,” Woohyun says from the kitchen; he’s offered to cook dinner for both of them and Sunggyu’s working out some details for the night. “But if something goes wrong, won’t you be like, fucked?”

“If something goes wrong, it won’t be my fault,” Sunggyu says without lifting his head. “This spell is foolproof, so if you fuck up, it’s on you and I’m out of there.”

“That’s good to know,” Woohyun deadpans. “No but seriously, I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” Sunggyu still isn’t looking up from his laptop, typing away. “But I actually offered the help myself and I can’t really resist using such a willing guinea pig.”

He laughs at his own joke – again – and finally looks up from his laptop, smiling slightly.

“Look, I’m sure about this, okay? If you do as I say, we’ll be both fine.”

“I trust you,” Woohyun says and realises, surprised, just how much that is true. “I’m just a bit concerned you haven’t told me anything at all yet.”

“Yeah, because you would overthink it and fuck up before we even start,” Sunggyu replies and goes back to his work. “Just give me something to eat and we’re good to go.”

-

Woohyun looks just completely ridiculous, bouncing on his feet like a little kid in the middle of the living room, eyes sparkling.

“Calm your tits, Woohyun, or I’ll send you to bed,” Sunggyu tells him, coming out of his bedroom, the paper with the spell carefully folded in his hand.

“Shut up,” Woohyun says, obviously too worked up to be clever about his comeback. “Now you really have to tell me what I’m supposed to be doing, are we doing it here or – “

Sunggyu rolls his eyes and without saying a thing comes over to the babbling phoenix and grabs his shoulder, teleporting them both. They appear in a forest Sunggyu’s been to before many times, bursting with magical energy and various creatures, far away from big cities and prying eyes. They’re roughly in the middle of it, the trees dense enough to make walking around essentially impossible. Sunggyu loves this place, it’s both silent, free of human presence, and noisy, with animal sounds and wind rustling in the trees.

Woohyun’s still mid-sentence when he realises he’s no longer in their room and blinks owlishly a few times. Sunggyu lets go of him and snorts, getting to work right away.

“Fuck off, dude, this is so unfair, how did you do that so effortlessly,” Woohyun breathes. “Where are we?”

Sunggyu looks up from where he’s spread the paper out on the floor and gives him an unimpressed look. “In a forest, Woohyun. A little light, maybe?”

“Oh yeah, sorry,” Woohyun hurries to his side and a little fire ball floats from his palm and towards Sunggyu.

“Alright, it’s show time,” Sunggyu mumbles and pulls his shirt over his head, throwing it aside.

“What are you doing, did you kidnap me to have your wicked way with me here?” Woohyun jokes and Sunggyu groans.

“You wish, you asshole,” he says and without looking up to him, closes his eyes and lets the magic take over.

He doesn’t want to tell Woohyun what the true nature of his magic is, it’s safer if he doesn’t know, but performing a spell this strong also requires a lot of his concentration and there’s no way he can do this without touching the core of his magic. The dark lines of the tattoos come up to the surface and as always when Sunggyu lets go like this, it comes with a wave of relief of not holding back, if only for a few minutes at a time. He slams his palm against the forest floor, the magic immediately responding; he’s decided to borrow some of the natural, forest magic surrounding them, figuring that would respond better to the spell and to Woohyun.

He draws up the power and then finally straightens up, opening his eyes.

“Come here,” he rasps and Woohyun, eyes wide open, steps closer.

Having remembered the spell by heart, he begins to put it together; the dark lines he draws with his finger stay hanging in the air while he puts together the complex sign. When he’s satisfied with it, he breathes a few additional words in Elvish, the language of the masters of disguise, and the spell imprints on the phoenix.

“Alright, here’s the deal,” Sunggyu says, ignoring Woohyun’s amazed face. “You’ve got almost two hours, but I’m expecting you back in an hour and a half tops, we’re not risking anything. Avoid big cities, avoid planes, no landing anywhere, you got it?”

“You do realise that after this, you have to tell me what you really are, right,” Woohyun says quietly, his voice serious. “ And thank you.”

Sunggyu takes a step back and the air crackles with magic and a huge fireball appears for a second before taking the distinct shape of a huge phoenix.

-

The feeling is indescribable, the first few swings of his wings take him incredibly high, out of the forest and above, the night air easily giving way. Woohyun can control his full form just enough to follow what instructions Sunggyu gave him, but the bird flies mostly free. It’s been years since he could let go like this and it’s intoxicating like a drug. The forest beneath him is quickly gone and then there is an endless spread of ocean, black and roaring. He allows himself to fly lower, careful not to break the surface of the water, only watching the sudden puffs of steam go up when he gets too close. Then there’s land again; the lights of the cities, sporadically dotted beneath him, seem so far away, the clouds getting denser and then clearing away again, the moon shining brightly at the horizon.

He never wants this to end, he’s distantly aware of crossing the borders of the country and the speed he can reach, the feeling of freedom, is breathtaking. He’s not sure how he knows when the time is up, but he’s back soon enough, circling above the huge, seemingly endless forest. In this form, locating Sunggyu and the place he took off from is easy. He’s reluctant to land, reluctant to give up the feeling, but the pulse of Sunggyu’s magic present in the air and now so familiar calms the phoenix and calls him closer.

In the full form, it’s also much easier to sense the magical power of the forest and apart from that also Sunggyu’s.  The warlock is concentrating an incredible amount of magic in and around himself. It doesn’t feel as one sided as it seemed before, not just dark magic but there are earthy undertones and something Woohyun wouldn’t be able to describe with words.

When he finally lands, steam hovering around him in soft puffs, he finds Sunggyu in some kind of a trance. He’s sitting with his legs crossed, the dark shadows are there around him again, but this time obviously under his control, twirling around him in beautiful, symmetric shapes. It takes only a second for his eyes to open slowly and zero in on Woohyun. He blinks a few times and this time, the shadows slow their movement and then simply float and disappear in Sunggyu’s open palm instead of disappearing into nothing.

-

“How was it?” Sunggyu asks casually and throws a pair of spare jeans at Woohyun, ignoring his naked ass. “Worth it?”

“Hell yes,” Woohyun breathes, voice hitching with excitement. “Thank you, really.”

Sunggyu smiles at him happily and brushes the leaves and dirt from his own pants. “Glad to hear it.”

Woohyun looks a bit nervous in the next moment, glancing down to his bare feet. “We can do this again, right? Because I’ll die if I never get to do that again.”

“Yeah,” Sunggyu laughs. “But not too often. I can’t make you invisible completely, that’s not possible, for me at least. But if we give it a few days, a week maybe, at a time we can make it work.”

“A week, are you kidding me, I thought you’d say like, a year,” Woohyun breathes with relief. “I need this usually right after rebirth and the weeks after, I won’t bother you too much.”

Sunggyu shrugs and lets his eyes linger over Woohyun’s naked chest for a moment. It’s a pretty chest, manly and it might have been on Sunggyu’s mind a little bit too much lately.

“You ready to go back?” He asks in the end, snapping his attention back to Woohyun’s face.

“Sure.”

-

The teleportation is as effortless as it was before and Woohyun collapses down onto the couch groaning. He’s exhausted in the best way possible and he stretches his legs and hands tiredly. It’s already after one in the morning and although he’s physically tired, mentally he is still more than awake. He looks over to Sunggyu who’s already and without shame eating what is left of Woohyun’s dinner.

“Hey Sunggyu, you fancy person,” Woohyun calls out and just drapes himself over the couch, looking at the witch. A witch?

Sunggyu looks at him and just keeps stuffing the noodles in his face, shrugging. “Hungry.”

“Does using magic do that to you?” Woohyun asks, scanning his eyes over him. It’s probably no surprise then, that he’s slim like this. He’s read that using magic sometimes makes people hungry and sleepy, or it affects their mood. It’s not really the case for him, because it’s his shifter half that uses the magic.

Sunggyu shrugs again.

“I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know,” Woohyun says and lies down properly to stare at the ceiling. “There’s a warlock written on your door, I get that it doesn’t cover it, because my label is ‘shapeshifter’ and that’s awfully general too. That could mean anything. But you deny it quite vehemently, so I guess it’s not that simple. From what I’ve read and seen – man, I don’t know. I’d say you’re a witch, a weirdly tattoed one. I don’t know.”

There’s silence in response and when Woohyun sits to look at Sunggyu – the bastard is still just eating. He rolls his eyes when he notices Woohyun’s look, too.

“You’re such an asshole.”

Woohyun hates how fond he sounds when he says that.

“Look, I told you – “

“Yes, yes, the less I know the better, I don’t care. After what we’ve done and considering I’m definitely bribing you into it again, this secrecy shit is good for nothing,” Woohyun watches Sunggyu finish the meal and actually wash the plate. “Just tell me.”

Sunggyu turns to him with a thoughtful look on his face. “It’s – I guess I can explain a bit. Witch, warlock... I guess it describes it on the basic level. But magic is not that simple, shouldn’t be interpreted that way either, if you ask me. You called me dark magic user, it’s what the government calls me too, but I just – don’t see it that way, I guess. All the magic comes from nature and there are just versions of that; fire, water, earth and air. And then there’s the way you use it, the form it takes in you.”

As he talks, a small fire ball hovers over his palm for a second before turning into a water one, then a blooming daisy and finally a tiny whirlwind. Woohyun watches amazed. He didn’t know Sunggyu had all the elements at his disposal, just like that.

“Your fire potential takes the form of a phoenix, generally offensive but with inclinations to healing magic,” Sunggyu looks deep in thought, ruffling his hair absentmindedly. “It’s not black and white, is it? You could simply function as the artillery of an army or become the best surgeon in the country.”

Woohyun doesn’t step in or offer his input.

“For me, it’s hugely influenced by my parents. My mom is your normal witch that would fall into simple categories. She’s great with air magic and spells; my teleportation is a mess compared to hers. And then my dad – that’s the problem.”

He laughs and points at Woohyun. “Never tell him I used the word ‘problem’ in connection to him. The point is, he’s a really weird kind of magic user, that you can’t label that simply. I think a more fitting word would be shaman, which sounds even more absurd, but probably works the best. He uses the power of earth to enhance his basic set of powers, uses signs and that sort of thing.”

Sunggyu points to the tattoos on his right forearm he effortlessly makes appear again.

“Shamans usually work best as a backup, as a catalyst. What I turned out to be is a mixture of all that, which is quite honestly, a mess,” Sunggyu shrugs. “I have a bit from everything in me and an incredibly strong catalyst to go with it. I guess that’s the most fucked up part. I think all that turned into the dark magic, which is the primary form my magic takes, unless I try really hard to get just the simple elements out of it. I don’t know, I guess it just doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a rotten hag that wants to watch the world burn.”

He thinks about it for a second. “Sometimes I do, though.”

He laughs a bit. “The thing is, the cocktail of magical powers I happened to inherit has a lot of destructive potential. Like, a lot. Everything I do comes with the fancy shadows and someone always freaks out.”

“So if I get it right, after all this time of you telling me you’re not a witch, you just basically said that you’re – well –a witch?” Woohyun asks, laughing shortly. “Seriously?”

“You know, there’s one thing I really admire about you,” Sunggyu answers instead. “Everytime I reveal something shocking about my existence, your reaction is just – I don’t know if you’re just stupid or your priorities really are that fucked up.”

Woohyun pretends to think about it. “It’s the fucked up priorities. I mean seriously, I’ve known you for what, six months? Considering we live with each other, I think it’s safe to say I know you a bit and I’m just not buying this whole danger deal.”

Woohyun tries not to let the grateful, cute look on Sunggyu’s face get to him too much. He looks tired and ruffled and suddenly younger as well and Woohyun just knows there has been a lot of unfair things happening in his life and he was unfair at first too. He still loves to call Sunggyu out on the bullshit he sometimes says or does but now it’s all in good nature, because essentially, Sunggyu has become his really good friend. He ignores the phoenix related things he can’t help, which is the occasional shedding of feathers, and he even sometimes comes to look over his shoulder when he’s mixing potions for his class, a wolfsbane brew for Hoya or whatever. He knew Sunggyu has been reading about phoenixes too because he’s seen the books in his room and now he heard him talk about it and it’s heart-warming.  

Now he went out of his way to make something Woohyun thought he would never have again possible. Sunggyu is a nice guy. And if Woohyun allows himself to look, he’s a gorgeous guy too.

-

Sunggyu doesn’t know why he told Woohyun. It’s not like it’s a game-changing reveal or anything but it does lift some weight of his shoulders. And it was just so easy to do it anyway. Woohyun never judged anyone; not even when he met the other guys, sort of outcasts in their own way as well. There is no proof other unicorns apart from Dongwoo are even alive today, anywhere in the world. Even though completely under his own control, many people still look at Hoya like he would go feral any second and would start biting people. Everyone expects Sungyeol to be an asshole who cheats and wrecks havoc anywhere he goes. Everyone wants to get into Myungsoo’s pants right away when in reality the guy is as asexual as they come. Life sucks for all of them in some way and maybe it’s because even Woohyun doesn’t have his life easy, that he just gets it. He makes fun of them, the crude kind of fun you can only afford with close friends, offensive and horrible, and then takes it when they make fun of him instead.

Sunggyu misjudged Woohyun big time, he is aware of that and he’s been trying to make up for it somehow almost every day. Letting him fly about for a bit is the least he can do. Woohyun is that kind of person who’s cheerful in the wrong moments, when Sunggyu wants to be miserable and unreasonable and just hate the world. Woohyun usually picks up on it and won’t leave him alone until Sunggyu’s choking on a laugh at whatever he says or does. Those are the moments he just wants to punch Woohyun in the face, or maybe just kiss him stupid.

And he was there when the last stack of papers from the government came, this time reminding him his position as a TA doesn’t have to be permanent and officials will be looking into it, if it’s even appropriate. Sunggyu just wanted to cry and probably destroy a city or two.

“You know what’s the fucking worst?” He yelled, looking wildly at Woohyun. The phoenix looked comically small in the face of his anger but was still there, trying to keep him company. “I don’t want to be a TA, I don’t want to be a teacher, I hate it! But who the fuck will give me a job, huh? You know who? No one. No one wants a guy with a target on his back, no matter what I can do.”

Woohyun had no answer; he couldn’t have had one anyway. But he did get Sunggyu spectacularly drunk that night, cooked him a meal and somehow got him into his bed at some point during the night.

It takes some more time for Sunggyu to realise that the best part of his day, the one he’s looking forward to the most, is coming back to their room. Or maybe it’s spending time with Woohyun specifically.

-

“So guess what,” Woohun tries to sound casual but can hear his own voice betraying him. “I got a letter today.”

Sunggyu doesn’t spare him a glance, frowning at a stack of papers, probably more tests. “So according to one of my students, the trolls are normally seen both during the night and day. God, all it would take would be to read Lord of the Rings, even Tolkien knows this shit. Fuck me and my teaching skills, I guess.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Woohyun accuses and watches Sunggyu draw and exaggerated F on the paper.

“Yeah I’m not, this is priceless,” Sunggyu says and points to the rest of the ungraded papers in front of him.

“Well listen,” Woohyun insists and crosses his hands on his chest. “I got a letter from the ministry again.”

“Yeah?” Sunggyu asks and puts down the pen, now giving him his full attention. “Troubles?”

“I got offered money. To I don’t know, spy on you,” Woohyun says carefully.

“Oh,” Sunggyu deflates.

“What, you don’t think I actually accepted it, right,” Woohyun cringes. “That I accepted it and just casually told you about it.”

Sunggyu doesn’t answer and just stares ahead, his jaw tight.

“Dude, come on!” Woohyun exclaims.

He doesn’t answer and gets up instead, suddenly, sighing almost inaudibly. “I’ve got to go.”

“What – are you even serious right now?” Woohyun follows him – well, tries to, because after two steps, something stops him from advancing. There’s an invisible barrier separating them and Woohyun seriously doesn’t know where he went wrong this time. “Sunggyu, wait!”

-

It takes him a few hours to come to terms with this whole bullshit that’s his life and before he decides to go back. Sunggyu found himself a quiet place in the library for the time and grabbed a random book to look less suspicious, just hiding behind it; the library is almost empty anyway, it’s pretty late and in the middle of the semester no one bothers to study yet. It takes him a lot of time to realise he’s staring into a book about fire creatures and is too late to stop his own hysterical laugh.

He throws the book away and covers his face with his hands, sighing. He likes Woohyun, there’s no way around that; he’s known that for a while now, probably. And so there’s no way he would drag him into any of this.

Sometimes, he just hates this country.

-

When he gets back to the room, it’s well after midnight, but Woohyun’s still there, obviously fuming. The room is unbearably hot too, the anger coming off Woohyun in waves of hot air. His eyes are blazing red and when Sunggyu steps inside, he looks like he really has a lot on his mind.

“Now you’re going to listen to me,” Woohyun barks. “And I don’t – “

“Just save it, Woohyun,” Sunggyu interrupts him. “I’m not implying anything. The point is the offer in the first place, that they thought you might be helpful or what. I think we should just stop hanging out, for your own good, just you know, living next to each other is more trouble for you than I’m worth anyway.”

“Are you even serious,” Woohyun gapes at him, unimpressed. “Do I get to have a say in this or what? I don’t see what the big deal is, I thought we’d laugh about this. It’s ridiculous and you’re crowning it with your idiocy.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sunggyu says simply, giving up on reasoning. “I don’t have time for your drama, just forget about it, get back to your chemistry set and let it go.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Are you even listening to yourself? Why are you making it such a big deal?”

Sunggyu doesn’t bother answering and goes for his door instead. Woohyun’s by his side in a split of a second, fuming.

“Why are you acting like this, I thought we were over your being a dick phase,” Woohyun stands between Sunggyu and the door, the anger giving way to a few flickering flashes of fire down his arms. “I thought we were friends.”

“You do realise I can teleport, right?” Sunggyu tries to say as scornfully as he can. He doesn’t have a rational explanation, at least not anything that Woohyun would accept as a legit reason to stop spending so much time together. Not one he would believe himself at least, because in all honesty, he doesn’t want any less Woohyun in his life; the contrary, probably.

Sunggyu has grown attached to him, he knows it, he’s used to Woohyun’s singing in the shower, to his warm and unfairly tasty dinners, even the weird shit he makes for potions. He has finally brought something new into his boring, stereotypical life. He doesn’t want Woohyun’s life, with a promising future and possibilities, to get endangered because he is bored and wants a friend.

Woohyun seems to be reaching a whole new level of angry and Sunggyu finally snaps out of his self pitying spiral to really look him in the eye.

“Look,” he sighs and looks away in the end, unable to keep the eye contact. “I’m sorry, okay. This is the best I can do for you.”

“No one asked you to do anything for me,” Woohyun snaps.

“You’re taking it too personally,” Sunggyu says. “It’s for your own good, I don’t want this to get messy. You’ll get over it.”

Woohyun doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at him with the betrayed disbelief.

“But – “

“Just step aside, please,” Sunggyu sighs and takes a step forward. “I don’t want to fight you on this. I’ll go down and talk to Agatha in the dorm office tomorrow, I should have had a single room long time ago.”

He thinks for a moment. “It’s probably time I get my own apartment too.”

He should just move to a different country.

“You’re seriously going to run away from me here, I can’t believe this. You’re going to move out because I got a meaningless letter?”

“It’s meaningless to you, maybe, but they sent it for a reason. And when you say no, you think that will help your situation, with their attention? They are looking for a reason to lock me up or maybe have me as a nuclear bomb in reserve, those are some pretty serious reasons you don’t want to be associated with. I appreciate it, okay, but it’s because I consider you a friend that I – just move, seriously.”

Woohyun’s eyes go positively soft when Sunggyu’s voice trembles and he reaches out carefully, grabbing his shoulder.

“I just want to decide this for myself, okay? I – I know we didn’t start this friendship the best way but I like you now and I like spending time with you, no one gets me quite the way you do, for fuck’s sake, you let me fly in the open sky for the first time in years. I think I can handle – “

“But this could seriously influence your future, don’t you get it? They remind me every month that this could be my last week at the university, I get reminded every goddamn month that there will be no jobs for me anywhere unless I sign some supervision papers, that by the way include morning and evening check ins, “to assess my mental stability”. Do you get that there is no normal life in my foreseeable future but you have the potential to do great things? And I could ruin that, Woohyun, just like this.”

He snaps his fingers and Woohyun’s mouth shuts audibly, his hand falling away from Sunggyu’s shoulder.

“I’m not worth that, alright. You might want to do the noble thing now or whatever – “

Woohyun scoffs and folds his hands.

“You think this is me being noble? Oh no, I’m doing this – I’m actually feeling like the selfish asshole here. Look, I don’t know a good way to say this, but I can’t do this bullshit without you anymore, alright? Sure I got friends, I really like your friends too by the way, but it’s just not the same – I can’t remember what I did before – Look just, let me make this decision?”

“God, I’ll let you have your fly time even if we’re not living next to each other, alright, if that’s what this is about,” Sunggyu rolls his eyes, laughing despite himself.

Woohyun just stares in disbelief. “You think that’s what my deal is?”

“I don’t know, Woohyun, that’s beside – “

“No, that’s exactly my point,” Woohyun steps closer, the fire back in his eyes. “I like you, really like you.”

Sunggyu just doesn’t know what to say and feels so tired of everything, of his life being complicated and Woohyun being dramatic. These are the words he would be ecstatic to hear in any other situation, he’s been hoping to hear them for a while now, because come on, he’s not stupid; he’s seen Woohyun looking and Woohyun noticing _him_ looking. They’ve been circling around this for a few weeks now. This might be the worst time to bring it up.

“Just stop, fuck,” Sunggyu curses and turns away, walking towards the kitchen instead. “I’m so tired of going in circles about this, I can’t change it, you can’t change it, that’s it.”

“I’m just surprised you’re giving up this easily.”

Sunggyu turns around and points a shaky finger at him. “Easily? Do you know since when the letters have been coming? Since I was born and my magic was assessed for the first time and they wrote on it plain and clear: danger. My parents took shit for me forever and now it’s my turn to be responsible for myself and the people around me. That includes you. It’s already started to affect you too and that stops now.”

“Just quit the martyr act, I’m literally telling you not to care about me and what me sharing a beer with you at the end of the day means,” Woohyun barks sternly. “Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn? What is the worst thing that could happen anyway, why is – “

“I have fucking enough, Woohyun, just shut up and let it go!”

“As if – “

-

Woohyun blinks stupidly, his eyes only slowly adjusting to the change of lighting, or more precisely the lack of lighting. It takes him a few second, for his eyes to adjust and to realise he’s in the forest, the same one as before again, and a few steps away, Sunggyu is angrily tearing his shirt off. A sight Woohyun could definitely get used to.

“Okay, you stupid asshole, just watch,” he barks and Woohyun feels like maybe some kind of line has been crossed because Sunggyu looks positively murderous. And there’s the whole, uncharacteristic shirtlessness.

For the first few moments, Woohyun can tell what he’s doing, because he’s seen it before; it’s the concealing spell he has used before to hide Woohyun’s phoenix’s side. This time it’s obviously for him. It takes less time and fluidly, Sunggyu rolls his shoulders and the white goes out of his eyes, replaced by deep, piercing black.

Sunggyu spreads his hands and the whiteness of his skin gives way for black lines; Woohyun’s only ever seen the tattoos on Sunggyu’s arms, but now they’re sliding down his chest and back, up his neck and even to his face, framing it carefully. The lines are fragile on his forehead and cheeks, fading almost.

Woohyun maybe feels more than sees what exactly is happening. The magic surrounding them floats towards Sunggyu as if he was a magnet, effortlessly and seemingly naturally. But it feels like a build up, like silence before a storm, and Woohyun instinctively takes a step back without even realising it. Tiny stones and needles lift up from the ground, hovering a few inches above the ground, the tension in the air rising to almost unbearable level within seconds; it almost feels like the oxygen is disappearing too, everything in the air just flowing towards Sunggyu. Just when it starts to feel almost painful, when Woohyun’s ears are ringing and his head is spinning, it all just disappears and Sunggyu’s eyes open, unseeing.

Nothing seems to happen then and it takes a few seconds for Woohyun to notice the darkness, utter black and void, star spreading through the air and covering everything around. Woohyun can feel the life giving up under it, leaving plants and insects and just surrendering to Sunggyu’s power and feeding it. It’s terrifying and yet fascinating. It seems that Sunggyu can simply absorb magic from around himself and store it within him and then use it for whatever, as the catalyst he already spoke about. Woohyun can’t imagine what he is capable of when he lets go like this.

Sunggyu himself is... indescribable. Woohyun logically knows that he’s probably the most dangerous person, magical-being he’s ever met and will ever meet, but he doesn’t feel intimidated. On the contrary even, he feels drawn towards him and how beautifully dangerous he looks this way. His magic aura has expanded and is surrounding everything nearby and it’s incredibly powerful and just – charming in a strange way. He feels an incredibly strong urge to go over to him and touch him, despite knowing the black shadow is lethal.

He doesn’t even realise his own powers are responding to the strong presence, his wings spreading and skin crawling with protective flames. His magic wants to go to Sunggyu, it’s probably the most dangerous aspect about all of this. On a subconscious level he knows he should be fighting this but he somehow doesn’t really want to.

The rusting behind him finally makes him tear his eyes away. The whole forest behind him seems to be moving, tearing up from the ground, the pull of the magic spreading further and further.  He has to hold onto a tree right next to him, falling to one knee when a strong wave makes the forest floor hitch upwards.

“Sunggyu!”

-

Sunggyu’s conscious but looks like it’s taking all that’s left in him not to close his eyes.

“You idiot,” Woohyun breathes despite himself, rushing to his side. “I – I have literally no words for this level of idiocy.”

Sunggyu tries to mumble something, even dares to try and look angrily at Woohyun. “You – know now.”

“What do I know, that you’re a stupid idiot who’s stupid?” Woohyun barks with no real bite and sits down next to him, looking around briefly.

The ground has settled and it seems like almost nothing has happened. Almost.

There’s no way Sunggyu can teleport them anywhere anytime soon and Woohyun can’t do that, so he settles down slowly next to him.

“You’re an idiot,” he says one more time and eases Sunggyu up into his arms, lying down below him. His wings come forward almost naturally, instinctively searching to warm him up.

Sunggyu doesn’t answer, already out of it.

Woohyun then doesn’t know how much time passes, the night stays dark above his head, and he watches the moon peak out of the clouds a few times. Sunggyu slowly warms up and relaxes, falling genuinely asleep instead of the rigid unconsciousness he was in before.

Woohyun can hardly wrap his head around what an idiot Sunggyu is. He wonders if he has ever done this, what he just showed him, before, or if he allowed himself to do this only now. He was adamant about showing Woohyun the worst of him, only to show him the opposite. Knowing he has all of this in himself but is not using it resonates with Woohyun strongly; he knows what it feels like to have the potential and to never quite use it, how maddening it is. Of course his magic is deadly, but so is any other kind if used the wrong way. Having the potential to do terrible things doesn’t mean he has to do them or ever will.

For all that matters, it seems like Woohyun has only learnt just how incredibly good Sunggyu is at controlling himself; scarily good.

Woohyun strokes his hand down Sunggyu’s back, sighing exasperatedly. Who’s the dramatic one here?

-

When Sunggyu finally wakes up, he feels… toasty. It’s a feeling he’s never felt before and it’s insanely nice. It takes him a moment to remember what has happened and why he’s, of all things, lying on a forest floor, with a surprisingly cuddly phoenix under him. When he looks up at Woohyun, the shifter blinks back at him, a soft smile on his face.

“You’re still here,” he marvels and his voice cracks.

Woohyun rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, where exactly would I go, you dork.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Sunggyu groans and he closes his eyes briefly.

He still feels incredibly exhausted but he can manage teleporting them back to the dorms; conveniently into his bed.

“I hate when you do this without telling me,” Woohyun complains but doesn’t move to get up and Sunggyu wouldn’t really let him go right now anyway.

To make his point, he slaps Sunggyu with one of his wings lightly across his back; a caress more than anything.

Sunggyu laughs throatily. He feels tired and sated in a way he never quite has before. He could count on the fingers of one hand how many times he’s allowed his true magic go wild like that, even if he still had to reign it in and even if just for a few seconds.

“You still insist..?” Sunggyu asks despite himself, looking up at Woohyun. The room is completely dark but Woohyun’s wings lighten it up, with mesmerizing mix of oranges and reds and yellows.

“I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me,” he seems to think about it for a second and he cringes at his owns words. “You probably could.”

“I wish I could make you shut up,” Sunggyu barks but there’s no bite and they both know it.

“I can think of a way or two you could,” Woohyun says and Sunggyu gets it, alright.

He looks up at the phoenix and has to laugh at how seriously the idiot just said that.

“You’re such a disaster,” he says and shifts upwards to be at level with Woohyun.

“I can’t believe how sassy you are in a situation like this,” Woohyun whispers, his eyes flicking down to Sunggyu’s mouth.

“What situation?” Sunggyu asks and smiling presses his lips against Woohyun’s.

It’s a disaster of a kiss, because they are both smiling and they’re uncoordinated and Sunggyu has his hand uncomfortably squished beneath himself. They pull back laughing and then Woohyun shifts and pushes Sunggyu beneath himself and kisses him as if it was the last thing he would ever do in his life. Sunggyu feels lightheaded and so incredibly happy, it’s hard to contain the feelings within himself.

-

Woohyun feels so impossibly right and content in that moment, that he never wants it to stop. Sunggyu’s making all these unconscious little noises that he doesn’t seem to be aware of, completely out of it and pliant under him. Everything is warm, his wings proudly manifested behind his back, as if to court Sunggyu even now. It’s almost ridiculous, because the witch can’t even see them. Sunggyu’s magic is reacting to him too, invisible, but pushing back, gently, coercing him forwards.

“Woohyun,” Sunggyu sighs and it might be the most beautiful sound Woohyun has ever heard.

He pushes himself back slightly, looking at the flushed warlock with wonder.

“As much as I want you to fuck me right now,” Sunggyu says and Woohyun’s spine tingles with the words, a punched out sound leaving his lips involuntarily. “Or the other way around, I don’t think I could stay awake for it.”

“You’re underestimating me,” Woohyun breathes, bowing his head down again to kiss along Sunggyu’s bare collarbone.

“Wow, confident much,” Sunggyu answers, but his breath is ragged and fast.

Woohyun doesn’t push him much further though, knowing more than well that the day has been an emotional rollercoaster for both of them. He presses a few more kisses to the side of his neck and then settles down next to him, sighing contentedly.

“Can I stay here?” Woohyun asks and Sunggyu snorts and turns to look at him.

“Try leaving.”

-

Sunggyu sleeps better than he has in a really long time. When he wakes up, the blanket is kicked off the bed and there’s a wing thrown over him, individual feathers moving as if there was a breeze. Sunggyu reaches out, letting just the tips of his fingers touch them and he smiles.

Woohyun chuckles next to his ear and flutters the wing slightly, before settling it down over Sunggyu again.

“I admit this is pretty cool,” Sunggyu says. “Isn’t it uncomfortable though?”

Woohyun snorts dismissively and doesn’t answer. Instead, he stretches lazily and subtly drops his hand over Sunggyu, yawning.

“Smooth,” Sunggyu comments but doesn’t protest when Woohyun growls and climbs on top of him, kissing him.

 

“A good strategy for future references,” Woohyun whispers much later, when they’re both panting and sweaty. “Probably the best way to get you to shut up.”

-

Later that afternoon, Woohyun watches the letter from the government burn in his hand into nothing but a pile of ash, that he washes down the drain. He ignores Sunggyu’s hesitant frown and rolls his eyes.

“You’re not getting rid of me,” he points a threatening finger at Sunggyu, who snorts.

“You seriously are unbelievable,” he mutters. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Let me help you with that,” Woohyun singsongs and finally sits down on the couch next to Sunggyu. “I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.”

Woohyun heart about melts when Sunggyu doesn’t call bullshit and he smiles softly.

“We’ll make it work.”

 

And they do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this more than a year ago, I think, and then I forgot it existed :D I picked it up half way done, so if there's any inconsistency, I'm sorry!  
> It was incredibly fun to write, so I hope you'll enjoy it too :)  
> I'm currently working on a chaptered fic, probably will start posting soon ♥  
> (one of these days, I'll learn how to write summaries) ((no I won't))


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